I am not sure when I became an artist, or if I am one. Perhaps it was never a single moment — no grant letter, no gallery wall, no residency acceptance that made it true. The work was already happening.

There is an assumption embedded in the art world that recognition precedes legitimacy. That you are a painter once someone with institutional authority says so. I think about writers with finished books sitting on hard drives, unpublished not because the work is insufficient but because demanding attention has become a profession in itself — one that competes against industries with resources most of us will never have.

I prefer the idea of the unartist: someone doing the work without waiting for permission to call it that.

My practice moves between painting, textile, concrete, and material salvage. I am interested in texture as language — surfaces that communicate to touch, not only to sight. Most of the art world, even sculpture, is visual. You are not supposed to touch. I am working toward something different.